Soul Screamers Volume Four: With All My Soul\Fearless\Niederwald\Last Request: 4 (25 page)

“But they will,” Nash said, and Sabine took his hand.

“Yes, eventually, they will.” Tod flinched, as if the truth hurt coming out. “Unless we find them first. But the good news is that the blood trail has stopped. The last thing I saw them gathered around was a strip of material. It was part of your dad’s shirt.” He glanced at Sophie, whose eyes were wide and damp. “It looks like he bandaged my mom’s wounds, which has slowed—or maybe even stopped—the bleeding. Which makes them harder to track.”

“Okay. Good.” I sat next to Tod when he held one hand out to me. “So, we’ll keep looking, in shifts. Me, Tod, and Sabine.” Because we could cross over safely if we were smart about it.

“I’m coming, too,” Sophie said. Before anyone could object, she rushed on, “Not alone. I’m not stupid, and I don’t want to die. But I can get there and back, so there’s no reason I can’t go with one of you. I can help.”

The rest of us must have looked skeptical, because she scowled at us all. “Four eyes are better than two, right?”

She’d said the opposite to Chelsea Simms during the two years she’d been stuck in glasses before her parents let her get contacts. But whatever. I liked Sophie 2.0 better anyway.

“Fine,” I said, and my cousin gave me a grim smile of thanks. “You can come with me, but not until you learn how to control that wail of yours. You don’t have to unleash it at full volume, you know.” Saying that reminded me that Harmony wasn’t there to teach Sophie like she’d taught me. I wasn’t entirely sure I could do her lessons justice.

“You can come with me, too,” Sabine said. “But the first time you do something stupid or put either of us in danger, I’m dragging you back here.”

“That won’t happen.” Sophie looked slightly less thankful for Sabine’s concession than she had for mine.

After that, we took up a collection and Emma ordered dinner for those who needed it while Sabine took a shift searching in the Netherworld and I tried to teach Sophie what I knew about the one
bean sidhe
ability she’d inherited.

Turns out my cousin’s big mouth was more practical than I’d ever given it credit for.

Chapter Fifteen

Sabine’s shift took longer than it should have, because she couldn’t blink from place to place in the human world, nor could she become invisible to humans like Tod and I could. Which meant that she had to actually drive partway to the hospital to pick up the search where Tod had left off, and she had to be away from onlookers when she crossed over, so no one would see her disappear.

She was still gone when the Chinese-food delivery arrived, and Sophie and I took a break so she could eat.

I left my cousin at the kitchen table with Luca and Emma scooping rice and chicken from cartons onto paper plates. Then I headed into the back of our small house in search of Tod and Nash.

Halfway down the hall, I heard them, one whispered masculine voice, then the other in answer, coming from my room. I stopped breathing so I could hear them better, torn between the knowledge that I shouldn’t be eavesdropping and the relief that for the first time since Nash and I had broken up, the Hudson brothers were alone in the same room and they weren’t fighting.

It was a moment I wanted to treasure. Definitely a moment I didn’t want to spoil. So I listened, just for a minute.

“The truth, Tod. You think she’s still alive?” Nash’s voice was low and strained. He was worried.

“Yeah, I do. I think Brendon would do just about anything to protect her.”

“He’s just one man.”

“Yeah, but he’s a smart man, and a big man, and a man who’s been around for more than a century and a half. He’s also a man who has every reason in the world to want to get both himself and our mom back here as soon as possible.” Tod paused, and I pictured him shrugging, though all I could see was my mostly closed door. “Anyway, if she were dead—if either of them were—Avari would want us to know. He’d want to feed from our suffering.”

“We’re suffering just from not knowing where they are. Or
how
they are.”

“But not like we would if we knew they were dead. Not knowing allows room for hope, and Avari can’t feed from worry and hope like he can feed from true pain.”

I snuck closer until I could see Nash through the gap between my door and its frame. He sat on the end of Emma’s bed, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, the toes of his shoes resting on the ground.

“Maybe they’re dead and he just doesn’t know it.” Nash’s gaze followed Tod as the reaper paced the rug in front of him, like he had energy to burn. Worried, angry energy. “Maybe one of those man-eating freaks killed them and
ate
them, and Avari hasn’t told us because he doesn’t know.”

Tod stopped pacing and sat on the edge of my desk. “I think it’s dangerous to assume there’s anything Avari doesn’t know.”

“He doesn’t know what we’d be willing to do to get our mom back.”

“Of course he does. Anything. The same thing Kaylee and Sophie would be willing to do to get their dads back. That’s what Avari’s counting on.”

“He’ll use our parents against us.”

“Yup.” Tod nodded. “He’ll use us all against one another if he gets the chance.”

“Do you think he’s found them?”

“No.” Tod didn’t hesitate. “But he wants to find them almost as badly as we do.”

Nash exhaled slowly. “What do you think he’ll do with them?”

“There are too many possibilities to even guess at.”

Tod was perfectly capable of an educated guess, but listing all the horrible ways our parents could die—or suffer for eternity—wouldn’t help anything.

“Think he’ll kill them?”

“Maybe.”

“Worse?”

“Maybe.”

For a moment—a very long moment—Nash was silent. Then he looked up, and his next words sounded fractured with pain. “We’re never going to see her again. You know that, right? She’s gone. She’s dead, or she’s wishing she were dead, and she’ll never be back.”

Wood creaked as Tod lifted his very corporeal weight from my desk, and a second later he sat next to Nash on Em’s bed. “I’m not going to let that happen.”

Nash laughed, a harsh sound that carried disbelief but no real hostility. “I get that you think you’re all badass, with the undead thing you’ve got going on, but it’s been nearly three years. The mystique has worn off, and we all know the truth. Reapers don’t save people—they kill people. Besides, if she dies in the Netherworld, there’s nothing you can do.” Nash stood, headed for the hall, walking backward, and I scurried away from the door. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I’m not the little brother anymore. You don’t need to coddle me. The truth is that if Avari wants Mom dead, there’s nothing either of us can do to stop that. Especially you. No offense, but you couldn’t even save Kaylee, and she was in the human world. Hell, she was in
your
reaping zone.”

A lump formed in my throat, and I pushed my bedroom door open. “Food’s here.” Nash turned, eyes wide with surprise, but Tod looked like he’d known I was there the whole time. He studied me, and I realized he was trying to figure out if I agreed with Nash. If I thought he’d failed me when I’d died. “Sabine’s not back yet,” I said. “Do you think you could go check on her?”

Tod nodded, almost reluctantly, then stood and slid one hand behind my head and into my hair. The goodbye kiss he gave me lingered, and it tasted like sorrow. “Be back in a few.” Then he disappeared.

When he was gone, I closed the door at my back, then leaned against it. Nash’s brows rose. “What are you doing?”

“We need to talk.”

He frowned. “Is it opposite day? ’Cause I think that’s my line.”

“I wish you could trust him as much as I trust him.” I let go of the doorknob and sat on the edge of my desk, where Tod had been moments earlier. “It would mean the world to him to look at you just once and not see contempt and suspicion.”

“Wow, seriously? I kinda thought he was lucky that I’m speaking to him at all, considering...what you two did behind my back. That’s not exactly the kind of thing that inspires trust.”

Granted. And we were obviously never going to be done paying for that. “But you trust me?”

Nash sat on my bed and thought in silence for a minute. “Yeah, actually, I do.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “We were together for so long....”

“Six months. We were together for six months, about a quarter of which I spent grounded.” Since neither of us had to sleep, I’d actually spent more time with Tod in the month and a half we’d been together than I’d spent with Nash during our entire half year as a couple. “But you and Tod have been brothers your whole lives. Why would you trust me but not him? Especially considering that
I’m
responsible for everything you blame him for. I kissed him, Nash. Not the other way around.
I
kissed
him.
”

“I know. But...” He exhaled in frustration. “I understand why you would do that.
I
messed things up between you and me. Looking back, I’m surprised it took as long as it did for you to bail on me—”

“I didn’t
bail.
I—”

He held up one hand. “I know. Just let me finish. My point is that I practically pushed you toward him, so I can’t really blame you for your part in this. But I never pushed
him
toward
you.
He went after you all on his own.”

“But he didn’t,” I insisted. “And he wasn’t going to. If I hadn’t kissed him, he’d probably still be watching from the sidelines, holding everything inside because he’s your brother. Because he cares about you. Because he wants to protect you, even from himself.”

“Oh, that’s such
bullshit!
” Anger flashed behind Nash’s eyes, and I saw him struggle to control it. Which meant more to me than he could possibly imagine. “I’m sorry, but you’re wearing rose-colored glasses, Kay. You think that just because you have a heart of gold everyone else must, too, but that’s not—”

“I don’t have a heart of gold.” Lately it felt more like I had a heart of steel. Like full-body armor was the only way I could protect the muscle that didn’t always beat anymore but always felt bruised.

“Yeah, you do. What you don’t see is that Tod would do anything for you because he loves you, but he’s not like that with everyone else. He’s not like that with
anyone
else.”

“You’re wrong. He’s not perfect—none of us are—but he’d do anything for the people he loves, and you’re one of them.”

“Right. I almost forgot that stealing your brother’s girlfriend is the best way to strengthen that fraternal bond,” Nash said. I started to object, but he held one hand up again to stop me. “I know. I have to get over that, and I
am
getting over it. I’m getting over
you,
anyway. But he’s my brother. We share the same parents. The same blood. He was willing to
die
to keep from reaping your soul, but he wasn’t even willing to keep his tongue in his own mouth to keep me from getting dumped. That tells me exactly how much I mean to him.”

I exhaled slowly and sank into my desk chair, one foot on the floor to keep it from turning.
Don’t say it, Kaylee.
It wasn’t my place. I had no
intention
of saying it until the words just fell out of my mouth.

“You died, Nash.”

He kind of tilted his head, like he hadn’t quite heard me. “What?”

“You died, when you were sixteen. In a car wreck. Hit head-on by a drunk driver who forgot to turn on his headlights. Your heart stopped beating. You stopped breathing. I know you probably don’t remember all of that, but I’m assuming you remember at least
part
of it.”

“Is this a joke? That’s how
Tod
died. I broke a few ribs, but I was fine. See?” He spread his arms, like that would prove he was right and I was wrong, and I only stared up at him, waiting for him to understand. For him to
let
himself understand what was surely already starting to sink in.

“No.” He shook his head a little too hard, and his thick hair looked like a crazy brown halo for a second. “Kay, no,
Tod
died. It nearly killed our mom. It nearly killed
me.
It was my fault, because I went out when I was grounded and my ride got drunk, so I called Tod. If it weren’t for me and that stupid party, he wouldn’t have been on the road that night, but he still would have died, because it was his time. He was on some reaper’s list.”

“No,
you
were on the list. And you died, just like you would have died even if your drunk friend had been driving instead of Tod. But lucky for you, Tod
was
driving. He was there when you died, and he was there when Levi showed up for your soul.”

“No.” Nash stared at his hands, lying limp in his lap. “No, no, no...”

“Do you know what it takes to become a reaper, Nash?” He didn’t look at me. He was still trying to see the truth in his own empty palms. “It takes a sacrifice. To even be considered for a position as a reaper, the recruit has to be willing to exchange his death date with someone else’s, without knowing about the possibility of being granted an afterlife.”

“You’re serious?” His irises were a
storm
of browns and greens, twisting too fast for me to interpret. “This is real? You’re saying Tod really...?”

“I’m saying that when you died, your brother started shouting for the reaper to show himself. He demanded to be taken in your place. He died way before his time so you could live. So that you could go on and make something of your life.”

“My fault...” Nash closed his eyes, and I could no longer see the tangle of shock and regret swirling in his irises. “All this time I’ve been telling myself that it wasn’t my fault, because he would have died anyway. But it really
is
my fault. I got him killed.”

“No, you didn’t. It was his choice, and I would bet you the rest of my own afterlife that if he had the chance, he’d do it all over again.”

Nash’s eyes flew open, and now the emotion in them was clear—heartbreak. “Why didn’t he tell me?”